What I hate about A Song of Ice and Fire (Spoilers Ahead)

[Dr Midnight]

Having read the Ice & Fire books, I thought myself safe. Arrgh.

Not that I really care... I've tried several times to push myself through the Dragonlance books. I'm continually assaulted by friends who can't believe I haven't read them, but I haven't been hooked by the series.

SPOILER-ESQUE STUFF BELOW

Ice & Fire hooked me in the first page. I loved the writing style. I loved the characters. Though I have problems with the horrors of war and crime as they're graphically depicted, I realize it's just GRR's way of slapping me across the face and pointing out that it's not epic fantasy that I'm used to. The character that deserves to die may just win that fight with the good guy... Gregor winning that duel was horrible, unexpected, and tickled my enjoyment of the series with a feather. The Red Wedding was unbelievable. It took me two more chapters after that to accept that it had really happened, and two major characters were dead. It was like a bucket of icy water being dumped on you in your bed, and it was refreshing to be shocked like that. That's just me, though.

I still haven't found a good book series to read since then. I keep looking for Destiny or Rhapsody or whichever it was I had recommended to me, but my store doesn't carry it. I'm reading GRR's Wild Cards I book and am unimpressed. I'm pushing myself to the end, but probably won't buy the next book.

 

[Matchstick]

I couldn't even get through book one of Martin. Everyone likes different things, but his characters didn't grip me, neither did his story or writing style. As for the gore, morality, perversions etc. I never saw it as some shades of grey thing, to me it was pure shock value, which sometimes can be entertaining, but even failed in that respect for me.

And whoever said terry prachett for humor, huh? Sorry that is just one more author whose popularity I never could understand, I really thought his books sucked and hard. For me humor in fantasy you got to go with Robert Asprin, even if the Myth series seems to have died after leaving us at a cliffhanger. (which really irritates me because this series was the 1st non-choose your own adventure book I read for entertainment so its got some sentimental value to it as well.)

Just as a BTW Shard, Aahz and Skeeve are back, there was a new book published within the last couple months as a trade paperback. Asprin got into a HUGE battle with the IRS, and had to stop writing for 8 or so years to deal with it. He wrote this latest to re-familiarize himself with the characters and their voices, and now he's started on the book he promised all those years ago.

It's all in the forward, and the book is pretty good, though the name escapes me now.

 

[Wolfshead]

SPOILER-ESQUE STUFF BELOW

The Red Wedding was unbelievable. It took me two more chapters after that to accept that it had really happened, and two major characters were dead. It was like a bucket of icy water being dumped on you in your bed, and it was refreshing to be shocked like that. That's just me, though.

It isn't just you. I also don't think this is done simply for 'shock value' or anything as simple as that. To me, it's engaging characters and great storytelling. I've found A Song of Ice and Fire to be the best thing I've read in 25+ years.

After reading this part of A Storm of Swords, I had to stop and put the book down (for about 30 seconds). I was floored. My wife thought something was wrong, because I had this look of utter disbelief on my face, and then I started giggling (yes, giggling) because I couldn't believe Martin had caused me to have such a reaction.

Unfortunately, the players in my D&D campaign might have suffered for this the next day. They had their first party member die. Their reactions were a lot like mine were when I was reading.

(Actually, I don't think there was a connection between the two events. I certainly didn't set out to kill anyone. The character in question tended to take a lot of risks, and was killed just after saving another character's life.)

Randy

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

I'm reading GRR's Wild Cards I book and am unimpressed. I'm pushing myself to the end, but probably won't buy the next book.

Book 1 was a mixed bag. If you even like some of it, I would push you to try a few more. It gets really good over the next several books.

It does crash and burn around book 8 (??), whenever Doc Tach's nephew shows up. It has been more than 5 years since I read them, probably more like 10, so I do not remember exactly.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

. No, I love the fact that the characters are not ridiculous personifications of polarized good and evil that feature in a good deal of the other fantasy authors.

!

See while I'm not sure I'd call his characters ridiculaous personifications, I thought Martins characters were the most unrealistic characters I ever read. Now maybe medevil lifestyle creates people like that, I don't know, but to me the characters were so unrealistic I could not get into them at all.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

My experience is that Martin's series was the first in a long time that I literally couldn't put down except when I had to sleep or work. It was so different in many ways, and different where I wanted it to be different.

It's been way to long for me since that has happened. Jordan recently is the closest in that I went out and kept buying the enxt book, and reading it, but I could put the books down with ease to watch whatever lame thing happened to be on TV for a person without cable.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Just as a BTW Shard, Aahz and Skeeve are back, there was a new book published within the last couple months as a trade paperback. Asprin got into a HUGE battle with the IRS, and had to stop writing for 8 or so years to deal with it. He wrote this latest to re-familiarize himself with the characters and their voices, and now he's started on the book he promised all those years ago.

It's all in the forward, and the book is pretty good, though the name escapes me now.

Sweet, I'm probably getting way to old for these books since I started them when I was like 9 or something, but his books are probably my favorites for quality, and nostalgia purposes. I've must of read the first 4 books in that series 20+ times easy, and as I've matured I've caught onto jokes that I just read over as a kid.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Book 1 was a mixed bag. If you even like some of it, I would push you to try a few more. It gets really good over the next several books.

It does crash and burn around book 8 (??), whenever Doc Tach's nephew shows up. It has been more than 5 years since I read them, probably more like 10, so I do not remember exactly.

If I remember correctly the first 4 or so are short stories written by an assortment of authors. So chances are many will be a mixed bag, though I agree after the 1st the quality did get more consistent until the nephew showed up. I never was particualrly impressed with any of them(on a whole), but I found some of the characters in the short stories entertaining. (I think I realy like the sleaper, guy who stayed awake for weeks then went to sleep for a while and woke up in a new body sometime joker, sometimes Ace)

 

[bramadan]

Martin's books are by no means "feel-good fantasy" which many people have gotten acustomed to. They break the moulds of the genre and therefore cause consternation in those who buy the genre books in the expectation that those moulds will be obbeyed.

As far as I am concerned, I have lost the taste for my childhood-love: fantasy/sf fiction after reading too many bland moralistic books. Moral ambiguity of SoIaF was the first fantasy I truly enjoyed in at least five years. It brings to mind such great (and moraly ambigous) works as Dune, Foundation, Amber, Gateway and, despite being low fantasy, Silmarilion (which for the record I always liked better then the "Rings"). As a matter of fact, the moral absolutism in fantasy is to a large extent a product of the rigid DnD allignment system (and incredible influence of Weiss-Hickman with their not-even-hidden religious agenda). It was much less accepted even twenty years agothen it is now and even Tolkien complained about it in the works of his friend and colegue Lewis.

For those who think that descriptions of sex and violence in Martin's books are gratiutous I refer you to check out almost any literature outside the sanitized genre-bestseller type. For example check out James Joyce (in his more understandable bits), Umberto Eco (whose "Foucault's Pendulum" and "Name of the Rose" I much recomend to almost everyone), Edgar Allan Po, Alexandar Dumas, even such God fearing authors as Milton and Dante, not to even mention such works of classic mythology as Mabinognion, Nibelungienlied, various greek myths and the Bible.

Suggesting that the well written death scene can be replaced with "and then he died" is an insult to the 5000 years of narative civilization.

 

[Storminator]

See while I'm not sure I'd call his characters ridiculaous personifications, I thought Martins characters were the most unrealistic characters I ever read. Now maybe medevil lifestyle creates people like that, I don't know, but to me the characters were so unrealistic I could not get into them at all.

What did you find unrealistic about the characters? Giving reasons and discussion instead of unsupported assertions is what this thread is all about!

PS